A Tribe Called Quest’s Phife Dawg opens up about his battle with Diabetes and his long road to recovery.

As told to Aimstar

Diabetes was hereditary as far as I go. On my mother’s side, we pretty much have it bad. Diabetes is basically about controlling your sugar. And if it’s not controlled, a lot of things can go awry, like amputation of your limbs — whether it be legs, arms, feet.

The first word that comes to mind when you’re diagnosed is “acceptance.” I accepted it when I was first diagnosed back in May 1990. We were on a trip to Connecticut to do a show and I was using the bathroom every half hour. So when I got home, I called my mom and asked her about the symptoms and that was definitely one of them. My dry mouth was another symptom. My grandma, who just happened to be a nurse, tested me when she came home and sure enough, I was a Diabetic.

My mom didn’t take it too well. She felt like it was her fault. And I didn’t make it any better knowing that she was diabetic, seeing what she had to go through when I was younger, and still being out there eating sweets. I was the type of dude that would eat a plate of Oreos for breakfast. It’s a sickness man. A lot of people will look at somebody on heroin and look at somebody that’s addicted to sugar and say it’s not the same. When in actuality it is because you can die from either.

Back in ’99, I had this bump on the back of my neck. At first, I thought it was a regular pimple and that it would go away, but it wasn’t going away and it was bigger than the average pimple. So I went to the hospital to make sure that it wasn’t cancer. They did some blood tests and when the test results came back they said, “Your kidney’s have died. You might have to start dialysis.” so that’s how I first found out that my kidneys were bad.

So I got a nephrologist and he basically broke it down and was like “well you’re actually doing very good for someone who has bad kidneys.” It wasn’t until 2004, when I landed in Houston for the Superbowl, the Friday before the actual game, when my roommate called me and said, “Yo, you got to start dialysis next month”

I was scared to death. It was a couple weeks after that I had to go in to get a catheter placed in my abdomen. When I first started dialysis I did what you call peritoneal dialysis, which is, you do it yourself at home, about 4 bags a day, about 3000 milliliters. So if I start a 6 am my last bag was at 6 pm. That didn’t work too well because before you put in, you have to drain out. I would put more in then I was draining out so I became bloated. I’m only 5′3 and I was pushin’ like 190, and it started to affect my heart. I got married in 2005 and I don’t even like looking at those pictures ’cause I was like really, really big for my size.

And then it wasn’t until like the worst month that I had through this whole ordeal. We were doing shows, which definitely took my mind off everything. But from the month of Oct ’06 until May ’07, I was in really bad shape. The doctors finally put me on what they call neural dialysis, which is you go to the clinic three times a week, and they do it for you, the technicians. So I used to go on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, and that’s how I ended up losing all my weight when everybody saw me at the Vh1 Hip Hop Honors.

Anybody would tell you, you need to lose a certain amount of weight because when you receive a kidney it’s gonna add weight on [you] automatically. So I had to lose the weight. While everyone was thinking I was dying or I was really, really bad off, it was something that had to be done. Hence the reason why I didn’t really want to go to the Hip-Hop Honors but Fab Five Freddy really stuck his neck out for me, to make this trip to honor A Tribe Called Quest. Unfortunately, I had to deal with all the negativity that was being said.

My mom pretty much talked me into speaking out because, in the beginning, everything was a secret for me. I didn’t even want to talk about it. I was depressed from what I was going through because I felt like, “I’m not going to be able to do what I love.” I wanted to coach basketball, I couldn’t do that. I was really stressed and the only time I wasn’t, was when I was on tour doing shows. It was very therapeutic for me.

They said I had to start dialysis right away; that I had to replace a kidney. What dialysis does, is that the machines start acting like you’re your kidney; replacing the blood, returning it back, cleaning it out, returning it back, etc. That’s what I had to go through to stay alive, in order to have a chance to have it replaced.

Originally, my dad was the donor but due to health issues that he had himself, he wasn’t able to do it. Then my ex-manager at the time, he offered to do it but mentally, I don’t think he was able to handle it. In the beginning my wife wanted to try, but my wife was really, really tiny. So the doctors objected it because I was much bigger than her at the time and the doctor was like: “You’re not the best fit.”

I’m not built to ask nobody for that. So when my wife found out she was the donor, we just collapsed and cried. It was crazy because it was up under my nose the whole time, but nobody had any idea.

I was knocked out. It happened Sept 25th, a Friday. She ended up going home by Tuesday and didn’t go to work for like two weeks, in order to get over the bruises. I went home the next Saturday. So, it took me two months to recuperate, while it took her two weeks. It happened really, really fast. But, my wife is so little, she had a kid’s kidney almost. So, the kidney she gave me didn’t work right away. I had what they call a “sleepy kidney.” It took about ten weeks to actually kick in. So I didn’t actually get the word until the Monday before New Year’s Eve that my kidney was good to go, and I could start traveling and being Phife again.

Now I’m good, I’m in New York enjoying the cold weather. I have a position waiting for me at this all boys high school in Connecticut as an Assistant Basketball coach, as an actual recruiter, and I’m also working on my next album. It’s still in the early stages. I’m messing with the beats right now, I’m about to go to Q-Tip’s house tonight and select some tracks from here and there. I’m messing with Ali, Dj Scratch, I’m doing something myself and I have a protégé, who’s nice on the beats.

I try to stay busy. There’s always the “why me?” stages, but you have to be a braveheart like Mel [Gibson], you know what I’m sayin. As far as Diabetes in general, before you’re even diagnosed with something as devastating as that, check your sugars at least, three or four times a day. Stay in tune, because diabetes will creep on you. You won’t feel any affects right away. Soon enough, you’ll start feeling fatigue and tired all the time, dry mouth.

Watch what you eat, exercise as much as possible. I gotta big up Q-Tip because he was on that no carbohydrate stuff forever. I used to laugh at him when he used to come on the tour bus with soy milk and shit. I’m like, ‘You know nobody drinking this shit.’ But, now I look back like, ‘Damn, I should have been checking for what he was checking for,’ instead of laughing at him. But all things happen for a reason. I’m cool now, I’m not playing no games with the health right now.